


Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie Or, How the Shrintch Didn't Steal Thanksgiving

by executrix



Category: Firefly
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-26
Updated: 2011-04-26
Packaged: 2017-10-18 17:05:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/191182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/executrix/pseuds/executrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A heartwarming Thanksgiving tale of hijacked trucks and romantic cops who are not entirely unlike the oft-slashed heroes of a certain 1970s cop show.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie Or, How the Shrintch Didn't Steal Thanksgiving

_Detective David Barsky looked up from the typewriter where he was painstakingly pecking out the report of his latest case. He and his partner had been sent undercover as florists to expose a poinsettia price fixing scam. Afterwards, Barsky had experienced a series of disturbing dreams, in which he arranged larger and larger bouquets. This morning, he woke up….misted._

"Okay, folks, that's the deal," Mal said, and clapped his hands. "Now get to work! Chop-chop!"

Book and Simon were the last to file out of the dining room. "I don't know about this," Simon whispered. "Admittedly, it's not like Paradiso, where lives, or at least health, was at stake. But this just seems…mean. Oh, and what's Thanksgiving, anyway?"

"It's a Rim festival," Book said. "Being, perhaps, somewhat closer to nature, they celebrate the harvest every year with a festal meal."

 _Detective Kenneth VanDenHeuvel rested his forearms on the railing of the catwalk overlooking the roller rink and leaned down. The rink was crowded with skaters. A cute hippie chick in a huge floppy hat, flowered maxi-dress, and calf-length crocheted vest broke away from the handsome young man holding her hands. The momentum sent him staggering, awkward on his skates. She skated to the center, right beneath the disco ball. The strobes flashed as she leaped and twirled._

 _"Jesus, Dr. Geronimo," the detective said to the man next to him (tall, stringbean-thin, clad in a half-zipped spangled jumpsuit and knee-high white patent platform boots). "Construction worker. Soldier. Leatherman. What ever happened to good, solid, old-fashioned police work? The way we have to dress up for every assignment…no wonder they call us Barsky and Ken."_

 _"And you think that's why?" Dr. Geronimo said. "Bitch, **please**!" _

_VanDenHeuvel ignored him and kept talking, stroking his blond moustache with his little finger. "What's next? A gigantic feathered headdress?"_

 _"Whassup, Dutch?" Dr. Geronimo asked. "You psychic, or what? Big ol' fan of feathers, anyway. Word out on the street. Holidays comin' up, bound to be some funny business. Follow the turkeys, my friend. Follow the turkeys. So, how's your partner? Girlfriend get a clue yet?"_

 _"What are you, my snitch or my shrink?"_

 _"Little of both? Snink? Shrintch?"_

 _VanDenHeuvel kept looking down at the lively scene below. Two azure glances crossed beams, and Ken caught the flash of a dazzling smile before they each remembered their encumbrances and looked away._

 _"Damn, that girl can skate!" Dr. Geronimo said._

Two weeks earlier, Mal had walked into the engine room and, feeling faintly furtive, shut the door behind him. "Swear you won't tell nobody 'bout this, Kaylee?"

"Sure, Cap'n, whatever you want," she said. Her brow furrowed a little; Mal's anxiety was contagious.

"I got a plan, y'see, but for this plan to work, you'd have to do somethin' that maybe don't sit right with you. Anybody else, they'd have to suck it up, do what they was told, but…well, I'm askin' you first, and givin' you the chance to say no. See, last week when I passed out the chores, I got Vacuum Hose. And when I was goin' over the guest quarters, I found out that my dear wife left her makeup kit behind when she made her hurried departure."

When he explained what he wanted, Kaylee grinned, threw her arms around his neck, and planted a smacking kiss on his cheek. "Shiny! It'll be real fun….like going undercover!"

"Make no mistake, there will be no covers involved," Mal said. "Your mission, which I guess you accepted, is just to dress up like I told you and just give 'em one single smooch practically like that one you just give me. 'cept, on the lips. And venomous."

"Too bad 'Nara ain't here," Kaylee said. "I could ask her for a few pointers."

Mal had timed it so that Kaylee wouldn't be able to do anything of the sort. He had once heard the Devil described as "the ape of God," and although he thought it would do Inara all the good in the world to see a cruel caricature of her profession, Mal didn't think it would be good for his own survival.

 _Stake out the mulestops," Barsky said. "Catch the 'jackers in the act. Blend in. You know, get out our plaid wool shirts, our Red Wings…"_

 _Groaning inwardly, VanDenHeuvel said, "That's a big ten-four, Brother Smokey."_

It was quiet in the Chat'n'Chew. Cornetta, the waitress, dropped a token into the jukebox. She looked around, coffeepot in hand, to see if any of the drivers' coffee mugs were getting on toward empty. One of them swatted her on the behind and said, "Hey, Cornetta, you on the menu today?" She gritted her teeth, knowing that a sincere "I'm **never** on the menu, asshole" would get her fired, and she needed the job.

The door opened, and a very young hooker sashayed in. Cornetta took another glance, and saw that the girl was very young, but no child. Job or no job, she wouldn't put up with pimps bringing children in here; her own daughter was just eleven.

The girl wore wood-soled sandals, striped socks stretching past her knees, a tiny pair of denim shorts, and an unbuttoned gingham shirt tied below her ribs. Her hair was in bunches over her ears, tied with yarn, and she looked to have on about a tube of glossy lipstick per lip.

She was followed closely by a huge man in an embroidered sheepskin coat. Not much of his face could be seen beneath his purple hat and wide mirror shades, but he seemed to have a goatee. He sat down and began picking his teeth with a curly feather pulled from his hat brim.

"Hey, m'name's Shortcake, anybody wanna go out?" the prostie asked the table of muledrivers. Cornetta's nemesis said, "Hell, yeah," and the girl took out her chewing gum, stuck it under the table, and said, "Ten credits. Pay my man over there and we'll go out in the parking lot and have a date."

Five minutes later, Cornetta saw the pimp leave. Five minutes after that, the other drivers left, and there was a commotion in the parking lot. By the time the driver sprawled out on the asphalt regained consciousness, the mule-load of turkeys he was driving had disappeared.

The empty mule turned up, five clicks down the road. They called the cops, and the one with the moustache said that there were tracks nearby that looked like a shuttle had taken off, but that didn't exactly prove anything considering that a shuttle could have come from anywhere and gone anywhere.

 _"C'mon, Barsk," VanDenHeuvel said. "Let's check out the market."_

 _One of the vendors said yeah, he had just bought six dozen turkeys from a big guy with a goatee, no, he would have remembered a purple hat, and no, he wasn't with a hooker, he was with this real pretty black girl, looked like she should be in the movies. And he said that after they left, he thought he heard a shuttle take off a few minutes later._

 _After the vendor shut down his stall, he went back to HQ. Barsky played him recordings of different kinds of shuttles. He wasn't too sure, but he thought that it sounded sort of like a Firefly shuttle engine._

 _They sent a bunch of waves to trucking companies, trying to figure out where the next strike was likely to be, and cross-checking the turkey thefts against incoming Fireflies at the relevant spaceports._

"Ain't this a sight for sore eyes?" Mal said, as he shared out the proceeds of the latest wave of hijacked turkeys. ''

"I'm glad…sort of…that this went so well," Simon said. "Why don't we stop now, before we get caught? This run of luck isn't going to last forever."

"Don't see why not," Mal said.

"Pride goeth before a fall, son," Book said. He and Simon exchanged looks.

 _VanDenHeuvel pushed the last forkful of crumb-topped apple pie around on the plate and shook his head to preclude another refill of Love in a Canoe. At least the last place they'd staked out specialized in Cowboy Coffee. "I guess we should wrap this up," he whispered. "The Loo's getting worried about all the overtime we're putting in for."_

 _"Sure," Barsky said. "Just let me hit the head and we can go."_

 _Sure enough, the minute Barsky left, their quarry arrived. This time, the girl wore a mid-calf-length denim skirt, the demure implications of which were ruined by the near-crotch-height slits front and back, and a candy-striped halter top. She also bore before her, heraldically, a huge spiralled lollipop that she licked languidly._

 _She went over to Ken and, screened by the pop, said, "Hey, honey, wanna date?"_

 _"Sure," he said, hoping desperately to see the door to the restrooms open. "Just…ah, wait a minute. I'm a muledriver, see, and I, uh, we do long hauls…"_

 _"I just betcha," the girl said._

 _"So, uh, just gotta wait till my partner gets outta the john, to tell them that we're, ah, that you and me are gonna par-tay…"_

 _The girl swept the lollipop aside and leaned forward. "Howsa bout a little down-payment?" she said._

 _Ken leaned back. The girl put her hands on his shoulders. He stood up, slid out of the booth, and backed away from her._

 _The big man accompanying the girl swung something at VanDenHeuvel's head. Eyewitness accounts later described it as everything from a wrench, to a billy club, to one of those big flashlights. The girl bent down, retrieved the bunch of keys hanging from VanDenHeuvel's belt, and she and the big guy left. No one moved to stop them._

 _When Barsky got out of the bathroom, he rushed to Ken's side, knelt, and cradled his partner's head. Ken's eyes fluttered open. "Hey, Barsk," he said weakly. "I…couldn't….make myself…kiss a girl…." And then he passed out again._

 _Barsky raced out to the parking lot to use the CB on the mule to call an ambulance, but of course by then all he could see was the taillights as the big guy drove the mule away, the girl holding on to the front bar and laughing, and the turkeys cackling up a storm._

 _He ran back into the diner. Someone had already called Emergency Services from the pay-as-u-go Cortex terminal. Barsky took off his jacket, took out his notebook, folded the jacket into a pillow for Ken, and started taking witness statements._

 _A verbal altercation broke out among the eyewitnesses, as to whether the huge, hulking brute ("I think he had steel teeth" one of them deposed) said "Haystacks are hitched" or "Play back an inch" or "Payback's a bitch" when he assaulted VanDenHeuvel._

 _An obnoxious little fat girl kept trying to draw attention to herself. Everybody ignored her, for her own good. Eventually, just before the ambulance arrived, and to shut her up, Barsky interviewed her._

 _She kept a notebook with the registration numbers of all the shuttles she passed between church and the diner (where her parents took her every Sunday for breakfast after church). She regaled him with a minute comparison of the pros and cons of every shuttle model until the ambulance mercifully came and bore Barsky and his wounded partner away._

"Awww, menopausal ferret's hemorrhoids," Wash said, just before the copship locked on to the comm frequency. "Mal, what should I do?" he said into the comm. "That's a Ninchiang Ought-Ninety-Nine they're flying, it's fast, and they've got guns."

Mal ground his teeth, then unclenched his jaw with an audible pop. "Fuck an' a half. All right, let 'em come alongside and board. I'll tell 'em I just hired you and Zoe at the last stop, all you two know is that we're transportin' a bunch of birds, far's you know it's all legit."

"Attention, Firefly-class ship Serenity," VanDenHeuvel said. "We are detectives of the Federated Law Enforcement Agency, and we have a warrant to search your ship for evidence of multiple counts of Grand Theft, Veterinary."

"Reynolds here," Mal said. "All right, come on aboard." {{Some phony invoices would come in handy right about now}} he thought. {{And that half-bright l…boyfr… **Simon** …of mine should have thought of it back when there'd be time to do some good.}}

As soon as he heard the broadcast, Simon raced to find River. "Go find Book," he whispered. 'The Eagle has landed.'" Then he walked down to the cargo bay and stood with the rest of the crew, their hands in the air.

VanDenHeuvel and Barsky carefully went over the cargo bay, snapping holograms and putting stray feathers into evidence bags.

River appeared at the head of the stairs, her face, bare arms, and apron ghastly with sticky redness, a smallish, limp turkey dangling from one hand. "They're dead," she said dully. "They cooped the flu. Dead for a ducat. For bonnie sweet Robin is all my joy." Simon quickly ran a finger across this throat—{{quit while we're ahead, River}} and she gave the tiniest of nods.

Mal opened his mouth to ask why the hell flu would make turkeys bleed like a water fountain. Jayne kicked him in the ankle. Mal shut his mouth, reminding himself not to thank Jayne later.

Book rushed up the stairs and enfolded River in his arms. The turkey sort of banged against his hip. The two detectives were only a pace behind. River, followed by Book, led them to Shuttle 2. A sweetish stench assaulted them, and they yawned and wiped their eyes, when Book opened the door. The shuttle was filled to bursting with slatted wooden crates, each of which in turn was—the word is unavoidable—stuffed with limp, feathery bodies with upturned toes.

"Well, as you can see, there are no turkeys here…that is, no live turkeys that can be sold," Book said solemnly. "Avian flu. They all succumbed. And once again, Crime Does Not Pay. So my advice" (he was prepared to back it up with a flash of his ID card, but hoped he wouldn't have to) "is just to leave us to clean up this mess. And speaking of cleaning up, I'd suggest that you find the nearest Decontamination shower and make sure you won't be endangered."

 _Barsky grimaced at the smell of the broad-spectrum antibiotic and anti-isotope solution._

 _"Hey, that was intense, wasn't it?" VanDenHeuvel said. "Can you get that stuff all the way over you? Want me to do your back?"_

 _"Thanks. I don't know…don't know what I would have done if I'd lost you, buddy," Barsky said, his voice choked and tears rising to his eyes._

 _"Oh, Barsk," Ken murmured._

 _"Oh, Dutch," David moaned, his foot slipping, sending him cannonading into his partner._

"Is the coast clear?" Simon asked.

"Sure is, son," Book said.

"Okay, River, hit it," Simon said, hoping that the extra vent he'd plumbed in would work River flicked the switch, and the SonoVapour was vented out of the shuttle and a flow of high-pressure oxygen rushed in from the extra tank.

A dissonant symphony of thumping and flapping ensued.

Down in the cargo bay, Jayne said, "Y'know, if I didn't know better, I'd think that racket was them ruttin' turkeys back alive and at it again. You ran cattle, Mal, but we used to raise them things for the autumn trade, and it was a challenge to have 'em not die of sheer stupid 'fore it was time to cut their heads off."

"I used to raise up a heifer each year for 4H," Mal said. "Lookin' back on it, prob'ly woulda been better training to raise turkeys for Future Desperadoes."

"Or herd cats," Book said. He led the wedge, with River and Simon close behind him and, for sheer drama, a couple of cages' worth of turkeys behind him. He looked like the Pied Piper.

"Will someone tell me in real short easy words what just happened?" Mal asked. "Or didn't."

"Didn't them fuckin' birds all croak?" Jayne asked.

"Anticipating that, sooner or later, something like this would happen, we sedated them," Simon said.

"Comes to dope, you sure got an itchy trigger finger," Jayne said.

"Well, it comes in handy around…"

"Bizui," Zoe said, and they did.

"But I believe the patients have all made a full recovery," Book said. "And should be eminently saleable at the next stop. But I would suggest that we make this our last raid on the in-transit turkey population. The holiday is almost upon us as it is, and our cargo will be less valuable after it than before."

"How'd you make 'em just go away like that?" Jayne asked.

"The power of my personality, I expect," Book said. "And a seemingly rational argument delivered in a persuasive tone."

"Yeah, that's religion all over," Mal said. "Give you a lotta lights and music, so you won't notice what kinda bullcrap they're shovelin' at you."

"I've heard it said," Simon said, trying to defuse the situation, "That diplomacy is the art of telling someone to go to hell in such a way that they actually look forward to the trip."

"Oh, I think Captain Reynolds is determined to achieve that destination without me," Book said. "And he's got his mind made up not to enjoy the journey either."

Directing a look at Simon that would strip paint, Mal headed for the cockpit to confer with Wash about their next destinations and courses.

"River, you didn't hurt any of the birds to get that blood, did you?" Book said.

Simon took a closer look. "That's not blood," he said.

"Of course not, sillies," River said. "That's water color on me, and Saffron's nail polish on your apron, Simon."

Three hours later, Mal slid down the ladder to his cabin. Simon was already in bed, holding a book and reading the same line over and over.

"Pajamas, huh?" Mal said.

"I didn't want to be accused of exerting wiles to influence the discussion."

"What did you think, I was going to beat you up for goin' behind my back like that?"

"The thought did cross my mind."

"But you're here anyway. Can’t fault your nerve." Mal lifted a corner of the blanket. "Socks too."

"I get cold when I'm anxious."

Actually, Mal thought that the socks constituted a wile, in light of a recent occasion on which he had moaned, "Aaah, leave 'em on." It occurred to him that the soft white socks on long, slim legs triggered a memory of a sorrel two-year old he'd once owned, back when ponies were readily available without divine intervention. Okonomi-yaki, that was the name. Skittery little thing, apt to shy. 'Fraid of lightning. Give her her head, though, and she'd give you one sweet ride. (That Okonomi-yaki was a filly was a fact Mal was wise enough to keep to himself.)

"Fact of the matter is, Simon, that much as I like not bein' bound by law and not losin' all our money" (an unspoken "again" hung in the air) "it cuts me to the heart to think of you goin' behind my back like that."

"Mal, you didn't exactly consult me about sticking River and me on to the side of the ship like…like one of those things Jayne would have splayed out against the window had if he could have afforded a groundcar."

"That's because in this operation, there is one leader that gets to give the orders, which coincidentally happens to be me. And by the same token which, what with nobody bein' able to step twice in the same movin' stream, ain't you."

"It's a question of which I owe more to, Mal. Civilization…decency…"

"That's a no-brainer!" Mal said. "Me!"

"Doesn't it ever bother you to be a criminal? And worse, sometimes a mean criminal? Isn't there anything else you—we—could do?"

"Simon, there's only but so much in this cold world, and spreadin' it around means takin' from them what has."

"That's not necessarily true—who is this taken away from?"

"Kaylee?"

"I see I was right to be concerned," Simon said.

Mal sat down on the side of the bed and took off his boots. One of his suspenders drooped. He looked over his shoulder. "I knew you'd be nothin' but trouble," Mal said. "Right from the first time I touched you." {{Wanted to take you down a peg. Thought you wouldn't be so high and mighty on your back callin' out my name. What I didn't know to figure into the calculation was how fast you'd own me.}}

"Including or excluding touching me in the sense of mopping the cargo bay floor with my suit jacket?"

"Excluding," Mal said. {{Back then before I found somethin' better to do with that sweet ass.}} "But, see, that's what causes all the trouble, you smart off at me like that. Don't distract me. Gettin' back to the matter at hand. Promise me that you will **never** do anything like that again."

"I can't, Mal," Simon said. "I wouldn't be the person that you…I wouldn't be myself if I didn't think that there were some standards that had to be upheld. I could not….uhmmm, honor more. But I will promise you that, well, unless there's a crossroad where I have to choose between you and River, I will always do what I think is in your best interests."

"Well, you got the job done, at that," Mal said. "Not a bad plan. You might have told me, though."

"It was just a contingency plan," Simon said. "Anyway, I was relying on the sincerity of your performance when that cop braced you." He thought he'd seen the handsome blond detective somewhere, but couldn't quite remember where.

"We got a dress code now?" Mal asked. "Do I gotta see if I can scare up some pajamas that fit?"

"Informal will be fine," Simon said. He touched his fingertips to Mal's hip. "But decorations will presumably be worn." He put in a bookmark and reached back to put the book down on the floor.

"You gonna take up one hundred percent of my bed?" Mal asked, down to his undershorts.

Simon slid back to clear some room. "Well, it's my bed too, isn’t it?"

 _"Well, boys, I suppose you know what I called you in here for," said Lieutenant Jackson. He steepled his fingers over his small rounded belly, and sighed. There'd been a memo from HQ reminding him that all Streetwise, Tough, and Secretly Sympathetic lieutenants also have to be overweight and balding. His 'fro had receded far enough for Regulation, but he'd have to gain ten pounds. What with Thanksgiving coming up and all, that should be easier than the converse._

 _"Sorry to let you down, sir," Barsky said, reaching beneath his cardigan to surrender his gun. His heart sank at the prospect of giving up his badge. {{I don't know what I'd do without The Job,}} he thought._

 _{{Where'll I be without you?}} VanDenHeuvel thought._

 _"Let me down?" Jackson said. "This Letter of Commendation the Mayor sent you boys is just one big long wet blowjob. Apparently some retired muckymuck leaned on the Mayor about—let's see, let me quote this exactly—the two "big damn heroes" who staved off an epidemic. So I just wanted to say—before you make full use of your detecting skills to not let the door hit you in the ass on the way out—that as my own contribution to the celebration, I'm going to erase some of the 'What are you smoking?' notations on your overtime requests."_

 _"Wow," Dutch said. "That's not what I thought was gonna happen. Want a beer?"_

 _"Sure," Barsky said. "Got a six-pack in my fridge."_

"What's that in the big blue dish?" Wash asked. Even though—or perhaps because—they knew what was going to happen to their recent guests, none of them really wanted to eat meat that day, but the table was spread with a lavish assortment of salads, vegetable dishes, breads, and desserts.

"Polenta," River said.

Jayne took a closer look. "No it ain't, you cooked up some of the grain we been feedin' them damn stupid birds." Wash let the ladle drop back into the dish.

River glared at him. "You're wearing your Blue Sun shirt again. I've got a butcher knife says that that's polenta."

"Works for me," Wash said, helping Zoe lavishly to the steaming grain.

Ke-Mal AttaTurkey, evidently having imprinted on River during his brief theatrical appearance, hid out in River's room while his counterparts were sold. Now he waddled into the dining room and sat down on River's lap. He began to peck at the blue dish. "See?" Jayne said. River stuck out her tongue at him and fed Ke-Mal a serving spoonful of hodgeberry sauce, which he swallowed with alacrity. She had a couple of leaves of lettuce in her other hand as his next course.

"River," Simon said, "I don't think we can really legitimately criticize Jayne's table manners if we fail to set a good example…"

"'We'?" Jayne said. "Hey, Doc, what'd **you** do, pick your nose and stick it under the placemat?"

"Jayne!" Inara and Kaylee said, at intervals of a third.

Jayne neatly cut a square out of the spinach lasagna with Binky, levered it onto his plate, and leaned back in his chair. He didn't think Mal would be able to object without getting wrong-footed his own self, so he began to sing, "We gather together to ask the Lord's blessings."

Book, Kaylee, Zoe, and Wash all knew the song, so they joined in, and River quickly learned it from Jayne. Three choruses later, they were all singing.


End file.
